Eye Drop Lockdown in Berkeley and Other Stories from the Bay.

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Another San Francisco round up of various sightings and happenings and experiences. I hope you enjoy your journey into my new world.

The fact that I am living in such a big, international city is still astounding to me, and one that I have not fully comprehended quite yet. That I can venture around this seven mile by seven mile peninsula and go from the high class, rich world of Nob Hill, down to the business world of the Financial District, down to the hispanic and hipster area of the Mission, and back over through Chinatown to my current living situation in the Inner Richmond is quite fascinating. You really can cater your experiences here based on what area of SF you’re in. And this of course ignores all of the neighborhoods and such of the East Bay cities of Berkeley and Oakland! The choices here are endless upon endless. I’ve been trying to figure out what area I want to live in, but really, housing here is so competitive that I’m just going to take what I can get.

Here’s what I’ve been doing lately, as I’ve taken this free time of mine to explore the city as much as possible:

Tuesday:

• I bought my first Clipper card, which I can use for the Muni (busses) and the BART (subway). For $72/month I have unlimited use of these public transportation wonders, which is definitely cheaper than all the gas and oil I was filling my oil-sucking 2001 Chevy Prism up with. I now feel like an official city resident!
• Jess and I took the 33 bus down some winding hills over through the Castro district (considered the LGBT neighborhood of SF) and over into the Mission District. The Mission is the hispanic area of SF and it’s also the hub of all things hipster in SF, so there’s no end to awesome coffee shops, cheap bars, vintage clothes, and overflowing bookstores in this area. Everyone dresses about twenty times cooler than I do, which really isn’t much of a feat.
• First stop in the Mission: Dog Eared Books, where I bought an awesome book called “Broke Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco”. It has already proved very helpful, since my ass is very broke indeed.
• Mission Dolores Park: Stunning views of downtown can be seen from the top of the hill in this park that is situated between the Castro and the Mission. Yet there are also many a view of the shirtless, speedo wearing greased up gay men laying in the sun together and eating popsicles. Hmm. Also vendors were going around in the park selling cold beer and, no joke, hash brownies. Welcome to San Francisco stereotypes!
• Bi-Rite Ice Cream: A staple of the Mission, which when I visited in April had lines out the door and around the corner.
• Through the hipster area of the Mission, we ventured up Mission Street through the heart of the hispanic district, where people set up shop on the sidewalks to sell heart attack inducing bacon wrapped hot dogs sizzling on their hot plates or some sort of fruity yogurty concoctions.
• Taking the BART (or as I have started calling it “the Homer”) over to the East Bay, past the crazy inspiration for Star Wars Empire Strikes Back AT-ATs  ship dock unloaders, Jess and I went to Old Oakland to meet up with Jess’ friend, Laura Feldman, who is in the Bay Area until the end of October while her cruise ship she’s working on is docked.
• Enjoying the most delicious sangria ever and a wonderful fried gouda, sauteed onion, and salsa covered snack at a tequila bar in Old Oakland, while periodically going outside to catch up with Ande and Elizabeth on the phone
• Going to this awesome beer lovers bar called The Trappist  with Jess and Laura and sampling some delicious Belgian wheat beer. This is after Laura got her toenail accidentally ripped off by the bartender, who bought her a free meal and beer all night to make up for it. Sitting out under the warm, night sky on the picnic table patio reminded me so much of the Meanwhile, well, minus the giant robot, unicorn, monkey, squirrel mural of course.
• After making our way back to SF, we waited and waited impatiently outside this Irish pub for a bus to come and pick us up downtown. The owner was outside putting up the patio chairs and, with his amazing Irish accent, he looked up bus departure times on his smart phone and told us the fastest route home. The Irish man and I then proceeded to laugh as we made fun of the impatient, entitled, drunken businessmen sitting at his bar.

Wednesday:

• Lunch with Jess and Steph at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland, per Kelley’s suggestion of one of her favorite Oakland places. I got something called the Bunny Bagel…hopefully because it had marinated carrots and not any bunny bits.
• Sitting under a huge stone gazebo by Lake Merritt in Oakland, we watched a couple spin, twirl, and whip their legs around in some awesome ballroom dancing moves.
• From Oakland and up to Berkeley by the BART, Jess and I were overwhelmed by all the smart people of Berkeley scurrying to and fro from class, to stores, and to their dorms. Berkeley is the university, just as Ann Arbor is U of M.
• How to describe Berkeley aside from the university? Well, you have your crusties with their dogs, sitting on the sidewalks, and then there’s the artists creating and selling outside of stores, or the buskers strumming away on their guitars, or the hippie types hanging out in the People’s Park. It’s basically just Eastown times about…let’s say 150%. Let me just put it this way: Jess was in desperate need of some eye drops because her eyes have been really dry, so I suggested going into the Walgreens right on Telegraph Ave. And there we see a stereotyping epitomization of Berkeley: the rows of eye drops are all locked behind plastic windows due to the high level of theft of this hot commodity! So we had to call one of the attendants to unlock it, and she had to walk it to the counter for us to purchase. Completely unreal!
• Post-university wanderings and due to exhaustion from climbing so many stairs and hills, I further mastered my control of public transportation and got us back home.

And that, my friends and family, is yet another adventure time in this new land of mine.

Until next story time.

San Francisco Wanderings.

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Rather than long winded ramblings, which I am very good at, let me just list out some of the awesome things this city has offered up since my arrival here late Saturday night:

Saturday:

• Pulling over on Treasure Island before continuing on the Bay Bridge to see the night skyline of San Francisco, with brightly lit ferry boats crossing under the distant Golden Gate Bridge, the air filled with the rich scent of the salty sea.
• Driving by Pixar Studios and seeing the larger-than-life lamp from the opening credits
• Stopping into random Irish pubs in the Inner Richmond district to find some beer and chips only to find that all of their kitchens were closed already. A bartender, upon seeing my Smitten with the Mitten Michigan t-shirt, asked if I was from Michigan, because she and the other bartender were both from Ann Arbor. “Yep, I just moved here tonight after traveling by train for three days!” She then proceeding to ask me what kind of shot I would like (Kamikaze please!), and so Jess, myself, and the bartender welcomed in our first night in San Francisco.
• Coming into our new home away from home (Jess’ friend Kevin) and seeing all of his Star Wars memorabilia, as he has worked for both Dreamworks and Lucasfilm, and has met George Lucas. Kevin, upon learning of my own geekdom, offered to take me to Lucasfilm when he is next invited to a screening. There I can not only see the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones  but also Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber! Ah!

Sunday:

• Seeing Lucasfilm, the Yoda fountain, and Darth Vader and Boba Fett costumes!
• Hearing a street band play outside of City Lights Bookstore
• Walking through Chinatown and seeing old Chinese men playing their strange single-stringed instruments on the sidewalks
• Stumbling upon the Chinatown Music Festival to see a bunch of Chinese 5 and 6 year olds singing a Spanish counting song, followed up by a song about a monkey, complete with hand motions and kazoo playing. The last song of their performance? Singing in the Rain, of course! Nothing screams China like Gene Kelly.
• Eating delicious pizza in North Beach aka Little Italy, and then asking the waitress about good places to go dancing. She wrote us out an entire list of places to check out, when to go, if they have covers, and where all the hot guys are. She was the personification of a San Franciscan: she came specifically to SF from out of state, loved the city and wanted to share it with others, and was very friendly.
• Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge but not actually seeing it or the water below or the cables above. Hello fog!

Monday:

• Having some random guy on the street tell Jess and I after we were finally able to cross the street: “You two pretty ladies! I’ve never seen cars stop and wait for people to cross the street like that.”
• Hearing Russian, German, Chinese, and French all in one day
• Being on a bus filled with 20-something professionals and old Chinese ladies jabbering away
• Almost sliding right off my bus seat and into the aisle as we descended one of SF’s many steep hills
• Having a *hopefully* successful second interview at HarperOne
• Enjoying a happy hour beer and burger surrounded by the skyscrapers of San Francisco

Departure.

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Alright, round two here, as my first attempt at this got completely deleted after I had written the whole thing. *obscene gesture at my computer*

After three days of travel by car, train, bus, and train with my life’s belongings thrown over my shoulder or strapped on myself or in my hands, I have finally arrived in my western land: California.

I would make this epic trip over again in a second; the experience was a fantastic way to encounter the country and see the lands between my old home and my new home.

The journey out was an amazing array of all America had to offer. The city of departure was Chicago, that windy city of rust and elevated trains, and Jess and I went underground to Union Station’s Amtrak station. From there we rode through the cornfields of Illinois, across the Mississippi River into Iowa, and through the sunsetting world of Missouri. When we awoke with the sun rising, after a horrid night’s sleep in our chairs, we were in the dusty brown, shrubby plains of Colorado, unaware that we had passed through Kansas in the night.

I thought with 54 hours of travel, I would be bored out of my mind, so I stuffed my bags full of books, magazines, cards, Scrabble, a journal, and movies. But most of my time was spent staring out the window at the rushing scenery. The visual stimulus of actually seeing America, parts of this broad country that I have only seen in pictures, was enough to hold my attention for hours on end. Normally trains go through the bad parts of cities, but this was not always the case with our Southwest Chief. Often it was just the iron road cutting through wide open plains and pastures, with not a sign of life around. Or we would cut through the rocky mountains of New Mexico or wind our way through a little green oasis of swerving river country, with the locals knee deep in the water, fishing poles at the ready.

Most of our time was spent sitting in the lounge car, with the tables and booths filled with the people of the train playing games, watching movies, and making friends. On any train, you’ll meet some interesting people, but this one woman in particular was the most weirdly interesting person Jess and I have ever overheard. Everything about this 36 year old made you want to look but not look at the same time. With her silver glittery eye shadow, high heels, jeggings, and tight shirt over her bulging belly, she demanded drink orders and food from her tablemate, a greasy haired, balding, red mustachioed man. He listened to her ramblings in her thick Massachusetts accent with rapt attention. Just read the notes that Jess and I furiously scribbled down while suppressing laughter and gasps of pity and horror:

I worked in a strip club to be a millionaire. 50 Cent and Marilyn Monroe are my heroes.

I’m writing a movie. All I need is to drink and be happy and to be doing karaoke.

There are day time people and night time people. I was born at 11pm, and darkness is all around me.

I just wanna go get my hair straightened.

I’m writing anonymous letters to President Obama, because I don’t like that word on TV. I’m a prude. That’s why I’m going to Vegas, to meet the big boys.

If I was married I’d give it to my man 24/7. I’ve called chat lines and men aren’t satisfied. I was 32 and in a Girls Gone Wild video. I’m a wild girl. I like to have fun. I’m happy. “I would never take a wild woman and try to tame her,” said the greasy haired man.

On not sleeping well: It’s like a Vietnam War for me, that’s why vets are so messed up.

I was in the National Guard, and I was with a guy from Texas, half Mexican. I met him in Wooster. I hung out with him on New Year’s Eve, and I ate a lot. So he asked me if I was pregnant, and it turned out I was. My life is a movie! It’s not just about lovers. I got pregnant in his parents’ front yard. I also got pregnant from a Chippendale dancer.

I’m writing a movie. I’m done. I want protection in LA. I’ve seen dead bodies. My doctor says don’t dwell on the past. I need a notebook to write down my songs and experience.

I want highlights, my hair straightened, a banging outfit, and bigger heels. I’m going to get a camera, and I want you to take pictures of me. Just wild and crazy.

The guy starts talking about how he found a fossil and saw a UFO, believes in Sasquatch and Loch Ness. She thinks she’s from Atlantis or somewhere where talented people come from.

I’m just looking for a husband in Vegas. I just want to party with rock stars.

Yes, I’m a poet and I know it.

I think 90% of the world is bipolar. I’m not bipolar. I’m a Leo.

Once we left LA and the crazies behind, Jess and I took the bus up up up into the San Bernardino golden mountains. From there we rode through the Fruit Basket of California through vineyards and orchards and the gray, dry soil where such things thrive. Then it was up and over the Sierra Nevadas and down down down to the city by the Bay, as the sun set over the water.

I was in my new home with a giant smile on my face.